


I met you too late

by thisisamadhouse



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Laura - Freeform, No Attacks AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 08:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14516838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisamadhouse/pseuds/thisisamadhouse
Summary: “I’m the ghost who haunts the house you just bought, and for some reason you’re the only one who can see me.”





	I met you too late

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lolymoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lolymoon/gifts).



> This little plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone and Lolymoon is an enabler, so there you go. Also you will find this line from Hamilton before it seemed fitting: “Dying is easy. Living is harder.”
> 
> Borrowed dialogue from season 4, especially for the reading scenes

The captain goes down with the ship, that’s what Commander William Adama has always believed. From the moment he joined the Colonial Fleet almost forty years ago during the Cylon War, he never thought he would live long enough to be retired. Yet there he is, in the suburb of Caprica City, putting down the last of his boxes in the living room of the four bedrooms, three baths, furnished house he has just bought for a ridiculously cheap price only a couple of weeks after the decommissioning ceremony of the old bucket of a battlestar he has started and finished his career on. 

 

Despite having studied the house from roof to basement, to look for any defect that would explain the unexpected bargain, and after the silent, intense glare he treated his realtor with, to no avail, he just shrugged and signed his name on the check and the paperwork.

 

It could seem a bit big for a single man, but he has two sons and a daughter-in-law whom he hopes will visit, and a best friend with a wife who both tend to overdo it when they have a full bottle of alcohol in front of them, and he would rather not see them drive if he can help it.

 

He looks around the room with its warm walls and dark cherry furniture. Even if the house has been empty for over a year, it is almost in pristine condition, only a few scraps here and there that speak of a full life spent in a place built especially for, and looked after by, the family that occupied it for as long as he has first boarded a spaceship to go and fight the Cylons, at least that’s what his realtor told him. Most of the personal items are gone, but there is one picture left behind on the mantle of the fireplace, and Bill heads towards it, curious to know more about the people who stood there before him. 

 

He is about to grasp it when he hears someone speak out behind him.

 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a feminine, low, soft lilt of a voice says, and Bill swirls around, his eyes rapidly sweeping the room, looking for the intruder who managed to sneak up on him unnoticed.

 

A giggle then, apparently coming from the couch... the very empty, devoid of any human presence couch. Bill frowns, wondering what kind of game this is. He approaches it carefully, searching for a camera, a speaker, anything that could explain it. “Don’t bother,” the voice utters, amused, and now he is certain that he has the right location.

 

He starts pulling apart the cushions, throwing them on the ground, pating the structure, until the voice protests. “Hey, that’s rude, I’m right there you know,” and this time Bill thinks he can feel a breeze of cold air onto his face. He straightens up and takes a step back, frowning. If he had had the chance to fill up his drinking cabinet yet, he would be worried that he had had one too many, and this seems a bit too sudden for an early onset case of dementia. There is another possible explanation though, and he isn’t sure he likes it anymore than the others.

 

“What the fr…” he starts to say when the phone rings. He hesitates, looking between the couch and the phone, before shaking his head and crossing the room to pick it up.

 

“Don’t,” the voice says, all playfulness gone, the tone all at once urgent and anxious, and Bill’s forearm becomes ice cold, frost forming on his skin in a pattern, fingers, a whole hand actually. The ringing stops and the answering machine takes over.

 

“ _ Hello, you’ve reached the Roslin’s, if you’re looking for Edward _ ,” the recorded message starts with a man speaking, “ _ Judith _ ,” a woman follows, “ _ Laura, Sandra, or Cheryl _ ,” three younger sounding voices speak in rapid succession, and one in particular holds Bill’s interest as he listens to the rest of the recording, “ _ please leave a message and we will call you back _ ,” the family of five talk together in a perfectly synchronized way, the message ending with a collective laugh before the beep resounds.

 

“Huh, I hope I’ve got the right number. I guess you haven’t had time to personalize your voicemail yet, but you really should cause that was a bit creepy. Hi, Dad, it’s Zak, by the way, but you probably already figured that out. I just wanted to check up on you, see how the moving in is going. Kara and I have some leave coming up, and we thought we might come by, have dinner, visit for a couple of days even. I talked to Lee the other day, and he is almost done with his exams so he may be able to join us. Anyway, call me back when you can. Take care.”

 

Bill smiles as his son’s ramblings end with another beep. Things haven’t always been easy with his boys, his career robbed him of a lot of time with them, he missed a lot, and ever since the divorce he has been trying to make it up to them. It wasn’t easy to see Zak flunk flight school, his own then fiancée now wife deeming him unfit, but his youngest found a new calling as a deckhand and he is thriving. His eldest had more success as a pilot, but in the end Lee decided to go back to school and become a lawyer. Bill can’t say it doesn’t hurt not to have any of his children follow in his footsteps, but then he remembers that he has Kara, and his daughter-in-law is worth a dozen so-called hotshot pilots at least. 

 

He shakes himself, he will have to return Zak’s call later, but right now he has a more pressing issue, because he can barely feel his fingers, and he is pretty sure that they are turning blue from being exposed to the cold for so long.

 

Just as he is wondering how to solve his predicament, whatever, or as he is becoming increasingly convinced, whoever is holding him lets go.

 

“Sorry,” a whisper in his ear, and the sound confirms what he thought. 

 

He heard about the Roslin tragedy on the news last year. The wave of emotion generated after the successive passing of a whole family of well-liked teachers had reached even Galactica. A few of the younger Caprican members of his crew were taught by either Edward or Judith Roslin as children, some even had siblings, nieces or nephews who were in the daughters’ classes. 

 

It started first with the death of the mother following a long, hard-fought battle against cancer, then the car crash with a drunk driver which claimed the father and the two youngest sisters’ lives, one of them pregnant with her first child, and finally the oldest daughter who drowned in a public fountain after hearing the news. From the look of things, it appears that one of them made it home after all.

 

He spent his childhood listening to his grandmother talk about the ghosts she could see and was trying to help. “They are stuck, Billy,” she used to say, the only one who ever called him that. “They are neither here nor there, but they can’t let go, they can’t move on, they try to cling onto their past lives but they can’t grasp anything. Everything is so cold and dark for them, we have to help them find the light and the shore. Treat them with respect, Billy, always.” Though why he would start seeing them himself now is the real question.

 

“Laura,” Bill says. “You’re Laura Roslin,” he looks down where the voice came from, and it suddenly seems like a veil has been lifted. Flaming, dark red hair, translucent skin, jade eyes that widen as he looks straight into them, a petite, slender but shapely figure with endless legs, the whole picture leaves him feeling rather robbed that he never got the chance to meet her while she was alive, and the thought instantly makes him feel like an oaf.    

 

She nods hesitantly, and it has him wondering how long it has been since she last heard her name being pronounced. “Yes, I am,” she says more assertively. “And you can see me, that’s new.”

 

Through her would be a more accurate term, but Bill is not sure he wants to voice that thought. “Believe me, no one is more surprised about that development than I am. I think I would have remembered if the realtor had told me that the house came with a roommate only I could see.”

 

Laura shrugs. “I have never had to worry about that before. People usually don’t hang around very long.”

 

Bill’s eyebrows rise. “And you have absolutely nothing to do with it, of course.”

 

She suppresses a mischievous smile, but he still catches it, and he wonders what kind of stunts she pulled to the poor fellows who ventured here before him. “It’s my family’s house, I have every right to be here. It’s not my problem if they can’t handle it.”

 

He can’t help but chuckle at the petulant tone from this prim and proper teacher. “Well, you’re going to need to learn to share, because I’m here to stay.”

 

She purses her lips. “You don’t seem overly surprised or concerned that you’re talking to a ghost.”

 

“My grandmother had the gift, that’s what she called it anyway. She could see and talk to ghosts, help them find their way,” Bill tells her, and she snorts.

 

“You’re one of those then,” she says disdainfully. “Thinking you know exactly what’s best for me, where I should go. One of the former buyers was some kind of priest, or exorcist, I’m not sure which, I didn’t care enough to find out. He thought he knew what was best too. He lasted a week before he ran screaming.”

 

Bill grins, imagining the scene. “As I said, that was my grandmother. As long as you stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of yours,” he concludes, finding nothing else to say, and she seems too stunned to retort. For some reason, it makes him smirk to have rendered her speechless. Something tells him it hasn’t happened often.

 

He decides to get started on putting together his bookshelves, and he can feel her presence lingering near as he works. She gets closer when he fills the shelves with rows and rows of hardcovers and paperbacks, looking over his shoulders to study the edges. When he turns back towards her inquiringly as he notices her longing look, she only shrugs and disappears from view.

* * *

It is a strange living arrangement that they have, but somehow it works for them. He has never minded being alone, and in between his children and Saul’s visits, that is the case more often than not, but after spending most of his life on spaceships full to the brim with soldiers or workers, even as a Commander with his own quarters, it is not something he is used to. Her presence, as silent or as loud as she wishes it to be, fills his existence and gives rhythm to his days. 

 

It doesn’t take him long to notice her intense yearning for reading. The fact that she has already spent hours just looking at his collection was quite a clue. 

 

“One can flicker lights on and off, break fragile objects, generally mess around the house, -and really, Bill, that’s no place to put spoons away, and by the Gods those wine glasses! I swear I will take everything out when you’re asleep and you will have to do it all over again in the morning-, but I can’t hold on to a book without it turning into a solid block of ice within minutes. How unfair is that?” She told him without batting an eye during his second day at the house, and he had to pause, two spoons in a hand, a wine glass in the other, before deciding to call her on her bluff and tidy up as he pleased. He found all the contents of his kitchen drawers and cupboards emptied on every available surface the next morning, Laura standing in the middle of the room with a smug expression, daring him to comment.

 

He didn’t and he has since learned to just roll with it and not cross her, it’s way too much work anyway. He has taken the habit, in the evenings, to pick out a book and read it aloud. He starts with the standard literary masterpieces, thinking about her education and her former occupation, but, even if she listens from her usual, self-proclaimed seat on the couch, she seems to lose interest rather fast and turns back to the TV that he leaves on during the day to distract her and only mutes as he sits down in his armchair to focus on his chosen volume.

 

It’s a gamble to extract one of his favourite mysteries from the bookcase, but it pays off. He has barely uttered the title that she swirls towards him, giving him her full attention. He pauses, looking at her over his glasses. “You know it?” He asks, and she shakes her head.

 

“Edward Prima? I’m embarrassed to say that it’s one of those classics I never got around to reading, despite my weakness for mysteries,” she says, biting her bottom lip, and he really should get a grip on himself, because he is not supposed to find this endearing, especially as he starts imagining the way she would have flushed…

He is doomed.

* * *

It’s in the little things, like lighting the fireplace year round even if he can barely stand it, because she can’t keep warm otherwise; like setting out two cups in the morning and brewing her favourite tea that he will never drink just so she can inhale its scent; like picking the sport pages out of the newspaper and neatly unfolding the political ones so she can read them and huff and puff at the stupidity of their leaders.

 

He asks her once if she would have ever considered a career in politics, and she laughs because she hates it as much as he does. It’s a shame, he thinks, with those legs in a power suit she could have convinced anyone to follow her anywhere, him included.

 

It’s in the reminders, when she gives him a lead for the crosswords he is stuck on, when she tells him that he has spent too much time home and he will become an hermit before long, “I will have dinner ready when you’re back,” she teases him, as she tries to push him out of the door to join his sons or Saul.

 

When she respects his silence and simply sits beside him, when she listens to his stories about the good old days, and when she shares some tidbit about her life to which he hangs on like a drowning man with a lifebelt, the boxing matches with her father, her paintings, and he can never get enough of seeing her light up when she talks about her work as a teacher. 

 

It’s in the quiet moments, when she leans over the pots as he is cooking some traditional Tauron dish and confesses that she wished she had tried it when she could; when she watches him work on his model ship amused and intrigued in turns.

 

He is so used to her presence that he has to reign himself in each time he has a visitor and remember that it wouldn’t do to interact with someone only he can see, though he thinks he has spied Kara’s eyes following Laura’s mouvements once or twice, he can’t be sure and he certainly won’t  ask. 

 

It hits him fully one day, as he is reading  Love and Bullets by Nick Taylo, a pile of blankets on his lap and beside him, patches of ice here and there, where Laura rests her face.

 

“ _ It started as it always did, with a body. This one was in the river, and I could tell that she had once been beautiful. But this, a bullet and fast current had taken away from her. All we are, all that we think we are, all that we are certain about is taken away from us. When you’ve worked the streets and seen what I have seen, you become more and more convinced of it every day.  _

 

_ Caprica City had been my teacher, my mistress. From the moment I open my eyes, she’s in my blood, like cheap wine. Bitter and sweet, tinged with regret. I’ll never be free of her, nor do I want to be. For she is what I am,. All that is. Should always be _ .”

 

He pauses, pondering the words. While he can’t associate them with Caprica City, he certainly can relate them to the woman occupying his thoughts, his space, his whole existence. He allows a chuckle to escape as he finally admits to himself that he has fallen in love with a ghost, and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it. 

 

His movements make her stir from her comfortable position, and she blinks up at him, eyebrows rising in question, but he only shakes his head before continuing his narration. What good could it do to her to reveal the extent of his foolishness?

* * *

A couple of weeks pass, and his fingers skim the shelves in search of something new. He stops when he reaches Searider Falcon, not exactly new but it had never disappointed him before.

 

Laura smiles widely as he shows it to her, she hasn’t read it in years, she tells him, and can’t remember how it ends, and though it is his favourite he is not much help, he has never been able to finish it, he never wanted it to be over, like a lot of things in his life.

 

It is a short but intense story, it doesn’t take him long to reach the seventh chapter.

 

“I must warn you that I’m getting into the part that I haven’t read yet,” he says, and she grins. 

 

“Oh dear, are you going to be able to continue?”

 

“ _ The raft was not as seaworthy as I had hoped. The waves repeatedly threatened to swamp it. I wasn’t afraid to die, I was afraid of the emptiness that I felt inside. I couldn’t feel anything, and that’s what scared me. You came into my thoughts, you filled them, it felt good _ .” He falls silent, the words resounding deep within him.

 

“I wish there had been someone to fill my thoughts in the end, someone still left to miss, maybe it would have made it harder,” Laura says, still and tensed, turned away from him.

 

“Easier you mean,” Bill counters, but she shakes her head, turning on her back, looking at the ceiling.

 

“Dying is easy, living is harder. Finding a reason to continue when there is no one left, when it’s so simple to just drift away. I didn’t mean to die, Bill, but in that moment, in the water, with only my memories, I let go. I could see my parents, my sisters’ faces, and they seemed to be calling me, but once it was over, I realised that they would have never wanted that for me.”

 

“Is that why you couldn’t move on? Because you thought they would be ashamed if you joined them?” He asks, before holding his breath in anticipation. He has always avoided the question, thinking that it is none of his business, and she would tell him if she damn well pleases, but it’s the first time she has ever talked about her death and he can’t quite help himself.

 

He is certain he has gone too far when a long moment passes with no reply, but then she nods, her eyes shimmering, and he reaches for her hand, squeezing it, bearing through the cold to let her know that he doesn’t need to hear more.

* * *

She was right, he thinks, as he slowly opens his eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun and a breeze over his face that smell of sea air, it is easy to die. It was bound to happen, his ticker could only do so much after all. He has no regrets though, he has lived a good life, it has taken long enough but his relationships with both his sons have been fully mended, he has seen them both happy and fulfilled, and he is so very proud. He would rather leave on a high note.

 

He can distinguish the golden shore and a milling crowd is assembling there, he wonders who will welcome him. 

 

A hand slips into his, and he doesn’t need to turn to know who it is. Still, he looks at her, and his breath catches in his throat: not only is it the first time he can touch her without fearing frostbite, she also has never looked more stunning, with full colours to her cheeks, the sun shining in her eyes in such a way it makes him realise he has never seen how green they really were, and her smile… If it were possible this smile would make his heart grow three sizes.

He smiles, threading his fingers with hers, leaning down to rest his forehead against hers.

 

“You didn’t think you could leave without me, Commander?” Laura whispers, and he chuckles.

 

“The thought never crossed my mind, Ma’am.”


End file.
